1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tracks for practising cross-country skiing.
2. Discussion of Background of Material Information
Cross-country skiing, an open-air sporting activity, is practised using special, very light equipment which allows one to slide on snow-covered terrain which is not particularly mountainous.
This sport is currently practised on tracks usually in the form of unidirectional snow tracks which link up to form a loop and which are regularly packed down and marked. The duration of snowfalls is the fundamental criterion as to the suitability for developing the practice of this sporting discipline. The threshold of one hundred and twenty days of guaranteed snowfalls appears, generally speaking, to be the optimum value for successful operation of a cross-country skiing zone. Below this limit, the lack of certainty of snowfalls no longer makes it possible to ensure the conditions of the entire economic sector, associated the practice of this sport.
It is known to create artificial snow-covered tracks by spraying, at the intended location, a mixture of air and water in the form of a mist, into the low-temperature ambient air using snow guns such as those described, for example, in the patent EP-80 400504.9 of the Applicant.
The patent EP 0034930 describes a different device, which also enables artificial skiing tracks to be created